Quotations19:51 May 17 2011
Times Read: 483
Quotations:
"About the time of the end, a body of men will be raised up who will turn their attention to the prophecies, and insist upon their literal interpretation, in the midst of much clamor and opposition." Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727 CE) 1
"The prophecies are to be unintelligible to the ungodly but intelligible to those who are properly instructed." Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662 CE) 2
"The Earth is degenerating today. Bribery and corruption abound. Children no longer obey their parents, every man wants to write a book, and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching." Allegedly, this came from an Assyrian tablet, c. 2800 BCE. However I seem to recall that an almost identical message was said to have appeared as graffiti on a wall in Pompeii.
"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia." Charles Schultz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip. 3
Background:
Most humans follow one of two concepts of time:
Today's Neopagan religions, including Wicca; Native Spirituality; many ancient Pagan religions; and some other faiths view(ed) time as cyclical. They follow(ed) -- the Earth's seasons and other cycles of nature, ranging from the daily cycle of light and darkness to the intervals of drought and famine that lasted for years. In the case of the Maya and a few other groups, they were aware of the "Great Year" or "Platonic Year" which repeats every 25,765 years. It is seen in the "precession of the equinoxes," which in turn is caused by the Earth's axis slowly wobbling on its axis like a top.
Today's monotheistic religions and some other faiths view time as having a start -- at the time of creation -- and an end -- typically in some form of apocalypse involving chatotic events and great loss of life. For millennia, Jews, Christians, Muslims, and others have been predicting the year, the month and sometimes the day when the end will come. In the case of Christianity, this typically involved the War of Armageddon -- a massive genocide led by God that will exterminate over 2 billion people on Earth, generate incredible suffering, and generate many devastating upheavals.
Richard J. Hooper in his book, "End of Days: Predictions of the End from Ancient Sources:" describes a typical scenario predicted by some religions involving an:
"... apocalyptic drama -- destruction, cosmic warfare, the comming of a messiah, the judgment of humanity, and the ushering in of a new world."
He writes that this:
"... sounds like the drama that takes place in the New Testament's book of Revelation. But an almost identical story can be found in the sacred texts of Zoroastrians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists."
One problem can arise when futurists from a Christian or other monotheistic tradition anticipate the end of time and search through ancient information from a Pagan or Neopagan religion -- the Maya for example -- for a date on which to hang a prediction. This appears to have been responsible for the increasing concern over events predicted for the date 2012-DEC-21. That date marks the end of the Mayan calendar's current cycle and the beginning of the next. Dozens of authors have coupled that event with Jewish/Christian/Muslim apocalyptic concepts, and have predicted chaos and destruction on that date. Those predictions are generating increased stress and fear in the lives of tens of millions of people. They will probably cause some individuals to have an emotional breakdown and drive others to commit suicide. We predict that bookstores and online booksellers will have major sales of books in late 2012 about apolyptic events on 2012-DEC-21. They will want to unload their inventory because these books will suddenly lose their value on 2012-DEC-22.
As a word of comfort, we would point out that religious leaders, scientists, fiction writers, and others have made tens of thousands of predictions of apocalyptic scenarios that were supposed to have happened in our past. All have failed. We see no likelihood that predictions of such disasters in our future will occur, with two exceptions:
We predict that if people don't learn become religiously tolerant and learn to coexist with individuals and groups of different religions, then World War III is inevitable. It would be a religiously motivated war which tend to be much more vicious than ordinary wars because both or all sides would believe that they are carrying out the will of their God. If both or all sides possess nuclear weapons in sufficient numbers, billions could die.
Scientists estimate that the Earth has reached about half of its life span. They predict that in about 5 billion years, the Sun will become unstable, become a red giant, and enlarge to encompass the orbit of the earth. No life will survive.
Millennium and TEOTWAWKI topics covered in this section:
Introduction to TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It)
The year 2000 millennium (now passed uneventfully: All about the new millennium: When did it start?
What was expected during the year?
What did the public expect at or near the millennium?
About TEOTWAWKI: Overview: "End of the world as we know" it beliefs;
Natural ways that the world may end.
Web sites devoted to end of world prophecy
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